Dominic Lessieur puts more into ring

Teen looks Golden on home turf

Credit: Christopher Evans

GOLDEN MOMENT: Dominic Lessieur of Lowell celebrates ﻿one of his victories at the New England Golden Gloves Tournament.

LOWELL — Though only 18 and barely in need of a razor, Dominic Lessieur is a young man wise beyond his years.

Less than a week ago, Lessieur suffered the first loss in what is now a three-year amateur boxing career, traveling to Lake Placid, N.Y., and dropping a close decision only days before the finals of the 67th New England Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions. A loss like that can linger, weighing on your mind like a bad dream, dulling your reactions and filling you with self-doubt.

Lessieur knew he didn’t have time for that, however. Not if he was going to fulfill the first of what he hopes will be a string of dreams worth fighting for.

“People say to get over a girl you got to get a new one,” Lessieur said last night after winning a 4-1 decision and the Open Division featherweight championship over a tough kid from Worcester named Irvin Gonzalez at the Lowell Auditorium. “To get over a loss, you got to get a win.”

Lessieur got that and much more, earning the Outstanding Boxer nod for the tournament. And yet he nearly forgot his first prize when pure joy washed over him after his hand was raised. Bounding around the ring as if he was on a pogo stick, Lessieur slipped through the ropes looking to join what seemed to be an Auditorium full of well-wishers when someone hollered, “The sweatshirt!”

That blue jersey is the spoils of victory at this stage of a young boxer’s career. It symbolizes that he had become New England’s Golden Gloves featherweight champion and, more importantly, was on his way to the national championships in Salt Lake City in May.

But a night like last night means more to a young man than a sweatshirt and a plane ticket. It means three years of often solitary work paid off. It means you have stuck to a difficult regimen that most people would never adhere to for long.

Most of all, it meant you finally could stand in the middle of a makeshift locker room wearing a smile as wide as the Merrimack River that was rolling by just down the street.

“I kept thinking ‘red corner, red corner, red corner,’ ” Lessieur said, describing his emotions as he stood in the center of the ring next to Gonzalez waiting to hear the winner’s name. “I was so excited.

“I always promised myself if I lost a fight I’d brush it off, but when it happened four days ago I thought about it every night. Every night I went to bed I thought about that fight. This is the best way to forget that fight — to win this one.”

Lessieur (20-1) dominated the first round but found himself engaging in too many exchanges at close quarters in Round 2 and coming out on the wrong end of them. As the final round approached, Lessieur’s trainer, Joe Ramalho of Lowell’s legendary West End Gym — once home for the likes of Micky Ward, Dick Ecklund, Beau Jaynes as well as Ramalho and his two brothers, David and Arthur, Jr. — told him what was at stake in Round 3: Everything.

Lessieur is the latest in what has become a conga line of fighters to emerge from Arthur Ramalho Sr.’s fight emporium, but last night he was the only one from the city still alive in the tournament. He was carrying with him not only his own hopes but those of a crowd of more than 2,000, many from across the street and around the corner.

Most of all, though, Dominic Lessieur was carrying his own hopes, nurtured since he first walked into the gym at 15 after someone badgered him into it.

“One guy kept telling me for months and months that I should box,” Lessieur recalled. “I finally did and I loved it. He stopped coming but I wanted to prove I’d keep boxing. At the time I wanted to get fit. I never thought it would turn into this.”

What it turned into was a proving ground for anyone willing to do what most kids will not. He was willing to say no to a lot of things. He was willing to run in the dark and the cold and the rain. He was willing to miss out on easy nights in front of a video screen or at the movies, exchanging them for a punch in the nose or a few hours hitting speed bags and jumping rope.

Six days a week he trained, never knowing for sure where it was leading until he heard “In the red corner . . .” Lessieur didn’t have to hear anything else after that.

“You definitely have to sacrifice at lot of free time for this sport,” he said. “I love that you have to be dedicated and strong-minded. I want to be recognized as a hard-working guy.”

Last night, he was recognized as more than that. He was recognized as a champion, a young guy from a long tradition in a town that knows what it means to fight, as well as what it costs.

“It’s so hard to go to bed after a fight,” Lessieur said. “After the semifinals (Tuesday night) I made myself do it. But I’m not sleeping tonight.”